Garden Stone: Creative Ideas, Practical Projects, and Inspiration for Purely Decorative Uses

by Barbara Pleasant

The Garden Writers Association of America awarded Garden Stone a Garden Globe Award of Achievement for Writing. The Washington Post wrote, "Garden Stone is one of the best idea books on using stones in the landscape that I have seen." And Country Living Gardener said, "While the book is visually stunning . . . diagrams and step-by-step instructions show how gardeners can make their dreams come true."

Garden Stone shows you how to add stone to bring texture, color, serenity, and strength to your garden. Author Barbara Pleasant offers more than 40 enchanting designs--from something as simple as a flagstone path to an elaborate Zen-inspired meditation garden. Each project is packed with practical, down-to-earth installation advice, including clear line drawings and instructional diagrams. A comprehensive resource list helps you easily find the tools and materials you need.

Pleasant helps gardeners decide which type of stone is best for which kind of design. Limestone, for example, is ideal for stacking to make rock walls. Sandstone is easy to cut for steps and adds warm shades of red, yellow, or chocolate brown to the landscape. Blocks of granite can be used as sturdy paving stones.

Pleasant also shows you how to create stone water features, such as fountains and natural-looking ponds and streams. And she provides hundreds of suggestions for plants whose color, texture, and shape will enhance your stone projects.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Micebyliz]

How i wish i had some of those projects to look at out my window. This happens whenever i check out garden books from the library...dreamy landscapes with not a whisper of blood, sweat or tears, or even mud or bug bites! imagine that. I have bruises from buckets of dirt and debris hitting my legs, i have hummingbirds strafing me, i have vines that grab my feet and kerplop! and worst of all? no soil. It's really all gravel and sand (Long story)
I do have a wonderful stone wall however and i planted behind it as best i could although the space is narrow. The steep decline is only a slip away...everything must be deer and bunny proofed but honestly they don't ever get those memos and eat everything anyway. I went out on the deck one day when there were five deer in the yard and i asked them what they thought they were doing? why are you eating my flowers? they just looked at me like, you know, deer in headlights.

[Ligaya · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll admit that I read little of the text but went through this book for visual inspiration. I trust author Barbara Pleasant and this book was good, but didn't have anything really innovative, it has a much more classic sensibility. Plentiful photographs, lots of innovative sidebars from lifting large boulders to the meaning of tied stones within a Japanese garden...